Monday, 23 April 2012

We've reported before on Goldman Sachs ability to place people at the centre of our political and economic structures so that they can shape the world for bankers. Well we can now tell you that the European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi, former vice president of Goldman Sachs Europe, was able to approve a 500 billion Euro bailout for European banks without asking anyone’s permission.

Last November, without fanfare and barely noticed in the press, former Goldman exec Mario Draghi replaced Jean-Claude Trichet as head of the ECB. Draghi wasted no time doing for the banks what the ECB has refused to do for its member governments—lavish money on them at very cheap rates.

And in January 2012, a permanent rescue funding program called the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) was passed in the dead of night with barely even a mention in the press. The ESM imposes an open-ended debt on EU member governments, putting taxpayers on the hook for whatever the ESM’s Eurocrat overseers demand.The bankers’ coup has triumphed in Europe seemingly without a fight from established political parties.

The ESM is cheered by Eurozone governments, their creditors, and “the market” alike, because it means investors will keep buying their bonds, (this is how governments get money). All is sacrificed to the demands of the creditors, because where else can the money be had to float the crippling debts of the Eurozone governments? http://webofdebt.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/the-european-stabilization-mechanism-or-how-the-goldman-vampire-squid-just-captured-europe/

On the 21st of December, the ECB “lent” 489 billion euros to European Banks at the extremely generous rate of just 1% over 3 years. I say “lent”, but in reality, they just ran the printing presses. The ECB doesn’t have the money to lend. It’s Quantitative Easing again. The money was gobbled up virtually instantaneously by a total of 523 banks. It’s complete madness. The ECB hopes that the banks will do something useful with it – like lending the money to the Greeks, who are currently paying 18% to the bond markets to get money. But there are absolutely no strings attached. If the banks decide to pay bonuses with the money, that’s fine. Or they might just shift all the money to tax havens.

At least if the ECB was working under the supervision of elected governments, we would have some influence when we elect those governments. But the bunch that now has their grubby hands on the instruments of power are now totally out of control.

To add your signature to a letter to parliamentarians blocking ratification of the ESM, click here.